The Year Of Ubuntu

We welcomed the new year in bed watching Monk with our noses running and throats sore, snacking on rose-hip jam for vitamin C and drinking ginger and pau d’ arco tea to boost our immune systems. According to the once renowned but now forgotten Antoine Bechamp this process is a cleansing that occurs cyclically and is necessary to remove toxins that cause our tissues to rot or oxidize. The well known Pasteur set our world on the germ theory course, which has led us to the current terror of micro-organisms which has given the pharmaceutical industry it’s hold on our state of health and our belief that we are being ‘attacked’ by nature. We become victims with no control over our own health. This is absolutely not true.

Just before we got the flu, we had been cleaning our apartment, getting rid of old and making room for the new. Over the New Year our bodies did the same thing and we are currently feeling more energetic than we have in a while. I also got a new hard-drive for my computer finally so I can start to really make use of the open-source applications that are available through Ubuntu. What with the body cleansing, house cleaning and new hard drive (named Tiamat), 2010 is a year that is begun with the ritual of cleaning and renewing that was traditionally associated with this time of year.

I recently noticed a wise woman call 2010 the Year of Ubuntu on facebook and this really struck me. As wikipedia mentions, Archbishop Desmond Tutu explains Ubuntu (2008) philosophy:

One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu – the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can’t exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can’t be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity.

We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.

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